Phase change ink imaging products encompass a wide variety of imaging devices, such as ink jet printers, facsimile machines, copiers, and the like, that are configured to utilize phase change ink to form images on recording media. Some of these devices use phase change ink in a solid form, referred to as solid ink sticks. The ink sticks are inserted into a feed channel and abutted against each other in the channel to form a column of ink. Abutting ink sticks in a feed channel enables a substantially continuous supply of ink for use in the printer. Previously known ink stick configurations, however, have limited the ability to isolate adjacent ink sticks in the column or single out ink sticks for functional requirements, such as stick identification/authentication, feed control, ink level determination, and the like.